Kelty Trail Ridge 3 With Footprint – Reliable Full Fly Tent

The Kelty Trail Ridge 3 with footprint is a typical Kelty-built 3 person free-standing tent, sturdy, reliable, and comfortable, and with several great features. This is an improved version of the popular tent.

Kelty Trail Ridge 3 with footprint and with Stargazing Fly.

Key benefits

Footprint included.

Gear loft included.

Stargazing feature.

Large vestibules storage area.

Kelty Trail Ridge 3 – description

The Trail Ridge 3 tent is described as a backpacking tent yet with its 7 lb 6 oz (3.35 kg) of weight it is not the lightest option available on the market. But, as pointed out in the benefits above, this is a reliable Kelty tool with several nice features. So, as the name suggests, the tent comes with a footprint which is always great to have as it extends the lifetime of the tent and protects the floor from sharp objects.

The tent body is mainly a mesh in the upper part, which is very good for breathability, and the floor is 68 D waterproof and with all seams taped. The doors are conveniently D-shaped and they open to the side, so you can fix them and keep out of your way. Two very large vestibules are in front of the doors, see their size in the comparison table below. So all this organization is very good and you have a lot of extra covered space for gear.

The Stargazing Fly lets you enjoy the clear sky, you can roll it up and fix in place with two clips, to sleep under the stars, or put it back in place in case of the rain. The setup of the tent is easy and the elements of the tent are all color coded, you will see the procedure in the video below.

The poles create a stable X-shaped structure and the extra ridge pole is there to pull the walls out, which makes the side walls nearly vertical and provides a lot of space in the shoulder and head height zone. The peak height is 45 inches (114 cm), so this with the vertical side walls gives a lot of volume in the tent.

The floor plan.

Kelty Trail Ridge 3 tent with the fly.

Inside you have enough space for three people, 46 ft² (4.27 m²) in total, see the floor plan in the picture above. The gear loft is included and you have nightlamp and storage pockets in the corners. The material of these nightlamp pockets is such to diffuse the light so you have a nice ambient when the lamps are on. The carry bag is half-mesh and with a roll top closure, you will see it in the video.

Guyout points are everywhere around on the fly so you can fix it properly in windy and stormy situations.

This is a modified version of the tent that has been on the market for meany years already. So obviously, the difference is in the name, you have the footprint included, and this adds a lot of value to this already great tent.

But there is yet another thing to point out; the door in this new version rolls out to the side, as compared to the previous version with the door that rolls out towards the floor. This is an improved design for sure.

See this nice short video by Kelty about the Trail Ridge 2 and Trail Ridge 3 tents, they share the same main features:

Pros & cons

My summary looks as follows:

Pros

Cons

Free standing.

Easy setup.

Very spacious vestibules.

Side doors.

Strong and stable construction.

A bit on the heavy side.

Small vents.

The vents are quite symbolic, on the vestibules’ fly only, so condensation may be an issue with this tent. But the design is such that vestibules can be closed only partly, i.e., one side of a vestibule can be rolled up and the other side can be fixed to the ground. So when you do the same on both vestibules, you can improve ventilation a lot, provided that it is not raining heavily of course, and that the tent is properly positioned with respect to the wind direction.

The Trail Ridge 3 tent with footprint has received a great rating by Amazon customers, with 4.4/5 average rate. see my rating:

Comparison with competitors

In this comparison table, you can see how the Kelty Trail Ridge 3 tent with footprint compares with some other top models, all freestanding, 3-season, 3-people tents. You can read more about these tents within this site, just follow the links:

The surface per person is better in the Trail Ridge tent than in the two other models, but the weight is not its strongest feature. However, the prices at the moment of writing this text are $246, 285, 412, respectively.

Summary

So to conclude this review of the Kelty Trail Ridge 3 with footprint, this is a reliable tool with several bonuses (footprint, gear loft), and with some nice features (pockets, roll-out doors, the stargazing fly, a lot of space, large vestibules). The price tag is very reasonable in view of all these features and bonuses, just see the comparison table above. This is a great tent, tested in the past, and improved in its present version, and I can fully recommend it.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

Hi everybody and welcome to my site which I nurture with love and passion. Here I describe my own climbs and give reviews of equipment. I hope you will enjoy it. More about the site and about me here.

Categories

Categories

Cookies Statement

In this site we do not have any cookie tool. But we do use services by third parties that either use cookies or may be doing so, yet we do not have any control of it. This is covered in their privacy policies. For more details please check in our Privacy Policy page.

Affiliate Disclosure

I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. So when you buy something from this website, I may receive an affiliate commission.
These are my opinions and are not representative of the companies that create these products. My reviews are based on my personal experience and research. I never recommend poor quality products, or create false reviews to make sales. It is my intention to explain products so you can make an informed decisions on which ones suit your needs best.